Insider Interviews: Media and Marketing Pros

MAY 19, 2026

When Bots Come Knocking, Human Answers: POV with Jay Benach

What if the biggest problem in digital advertising isn’t whether ads are working… but whether anyone seeing them is actually human? Insider Interviews host E.B. Moss talks with Jay Benach, GM of Media Security at Human, about bots, fake traffic, AI crawlers, ad fraud, and the increasingly blurry line between human behavior and automated activity online. Human, formerly known as "Bot or Not" then "White Ops" (which explains a lot of what they do) helps brands distinguish between real people, useful bots, and malicious automation impacting their business. Benach explains how the company evolved from identifying fraudulent browser sessions to helping marketers understand a much more complicated ecosystem of humans, AI agents, shopping bots, scrapers, and crawlers. The conversation explores why “viewable” doesn’t necessarily mean “human,” how bots were engineered to satisfy traditional ad measurement standards, and why marketers now face a new challenge: determining not just whether traffic is automated, but who sent it and what it’s trying to accomplish. Benach also discusses: • Sniping bots that manipulate shopping cart and retargeting data • Competitor-driven click activity that drains paid search budgets • The explosion of LLM crawlers feeding AI systems • Why some bots may actually represent valuable purchase intent • How advertising inside LLM conversations could reshape digital marketing As Benach explains, the question is no longer simply “Is this a bot?” It’s “Who sent it, and what does it want?” If you're a marketer, learn how to answer that question in this episode, captured at #Possible2026. Key Moments: 0:00:59 — Jay Benach, GM of Media Security at Human: From Bot or Not to Human — the origin story behind the name 0:02:47 — Jay's gaming industry backstory — and the suspicious audiences that led him here 0:04:59 — How the conversation around bots has fundamentally shifted in 12 years 0:06:21 — Good bots, bad bots, and the marionette pulling the strings 0:09:23 — Why LLMs have caused an explosion of bot activity across the web 0:09:32 — Jay's take on advertising inside LLMs — and why it might be the most precise ad buy yet 0:12:01 — Pitch Me, Pinch Me: "Do you want to know if you're being robbed?" 0:13:16 — Viewable doesn't mean human: How bots learned to game the system 0:17:41 — When you filter out fraud, costs go up — and why that's actually good news 0:18:30 — Sniping bots, budget-draining clicks, and the threats hiding in your e-commerce metrics 0:22:30 — The Human Side: Serving the good bots — and the vertical learning curve for marketers

12 MIN

MAY 13, 2026

What Counts: The VAB on Streaming, Attention, and the Numbers That Actually Matter

Jason Wiese, EVP of Insights and Measurement at the VAB, might make you rethink your entire approach to media planning, buckle your seatbelt around AI, and race to embrace premium video. Wiese produces 50 to 60 research and insight pieces a year, and does not, in his own words, "deal in NON-hard numbers." Consider yourself warned. And informed. Host E.B. Moss gets Wiese to dish in a fast and fact-filled conversation captured during #possible2026 for Insider Interviews on how ad-supported streaming has won and how to see through the Illusions of the Internet. Example: #DYK: 95% of CTV viewers see ads on their home screen before they even choose what to watch, and more than half of new streaming subscriptions are to ad-supported tiers?! Fifty-one percent of internet traffic is non-human. Thirty-seven percent is malicious bots. Global ad fraud hit $111 billion last year — about 22% of total digital ad spend — projected to reach $172 billion by 2028. BUT - the good news is real too. Premium video remains the industry's most transparent, brand-safe environment, and Wiese walks through the VAB's five-pillar definition to cut through how loosely the term gets used. On what separates a valuable impression from a wasted one: "A bad ad environment can devalue a brand. It's not even a flat-line thing. It devalues a brand." He rounds it out with a clear-eyed take on AI in media planning, being useful if planners understand its inherent bias toward digital platforms before trusting any AI-generated allocation. And, if you want to see how good ad environments hold up in practice, the recent Insider Interviews episode with Atmosphere has some eye-opening eye-tracking data worth a look. Share this with someone who's still flying blind on digital metrics. And subscribe so you don't miss the remaining POV: Possible episodes. Non-bot likes and comments are especially welcomed.

13 MIN

MAY 5, 2026

POV: Possible! Media & Marketing Working Together Is Cool

8 MIN

APR 21, 2026

How TV is Winning Attention in the IRL Atmosphere

15 MIN

MAR 25, 2026

Women Building the Future of Media: She-Cam Sessions from SXSW

18 MIN

Insider Interviews: Media and Marketing Pros

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